Focus Shifts Back To Jobs: Obama To Send His Bill To Congress Today

A job fair sign at the Suffolk County One Stop Employment Center last week in Hauppauge, N.Y.

Spencer Platt
/ Getty Images

With the solemn ceremonies marking the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks now over, Washington returns to the subject most likely to dominate the political debate between now and the November 2012 presidential election:

Sending the plan to Congress will give the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office a chance to "score" the package — give its conclusions on how much good the plan would do and whether it would, as the president says, be paid for without adding to the federal debt.

As NPR's Scott Horsley reported last week, the White House plan differs sharply from jobs programs put forward by Republican presidential contenders Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman. Obama, Scott said, would apply "the classic Keynesian remedy ... the government [would] step into the void and prime the pump so you get more demand, more hiring and try to reverse the cycle."

Republicans, meanwhile, "say businesses would be hiring right now if they weren't weighed down by the fear of future taxes and government red tape."